The U.S.-planned missile defense system in Eastern Europe should be under a joint control of NATO, Jiri Sedivy, the future NATO assistant secretary general said on Friday.
"The negotiations are open and in my opinion there must be certain co-responsibility in the decision-making. I mean collective participation in it," Sedivy, who will be in charge of defense policy and planning in autumn, said in an interview with the daily Pravo.
However, the former Czech defense minister said in a radio interview on Wednesday that the planned radar base within the U.S. missile shield will never be fully under NATO control, even if the U.S. missile defense project is harmonized with similar plans of NATO.
If the base is constructed in the Czech Republic, the United States "will always have the last say," he added.
Sedivy also said that his statement on Wednesday in which he compared the control of the anti-missile shield to the use of nuclear weapons in NATO was "a rash and premature parallel," Pravo reported.
On Wednesday, he said that the last decision on the possible use of mass-destruction weapons, including the nuclear ones, rests with the U.S. and Britain only, even within NATO.
The U.S. unveiled its plan in January to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic, as components of the missile defense shield.
According to a recent public opinion poll, more than two thirds of Czech citizens disagree with the installation of the base, which is to be built in the Brdy military district, some 70 km southwest of Prague.
Parties in the coalition government are not united on the issue either.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article